How To Read The DrugCheck Cotinine Cassette Test

You’ve collected the correct specimen amount and you are about to see the results. The good news is that you have already done the hard part, collecting the sample in a cup. Now you have to remove the cap from the dip card and allow the strips to soak up some of the sample for at least 10 to 15 seconds. Administering this test really isn’t difficult at all, it’s important to know how to read the DrugCheck cotinine cassette test dip card results.

The results should show up in about 5 minutes (or less) if everything has gone well. By that, I mean if no tampering of any kind has been done. No matter what drug you are testing for, the results panel should be displaying a line next to the letter “C” (which stands for control) to tell you the test is running fine. If a line does not appear next to the control, then you must presume the test as invalid and try a new drug test.

However, it’s a little different when you look at the drug results. Based on if the drug you are testing for is in the sample, you want to see a line next to the drug abbreviation, as it means negative. If you do NOT see any lines appear next to the drug abbreviation on the test strip, that means the sample is non-negative (a.k.a. positive) for that drug.

Another question that may pop into your mind may be “does a faint line mean there is some of the drug present in the urine?” Yes it does! The presence of a test line, regardless of how faint, indicates a negative result. Even if there is some drug in the urine, if the line is present, the specimen does have the MINIMUM amount of drug needed, therefore it should be considered positive. Should you have any doubts, perhaps you might want to re-test.

With that being said, it brings up another reminder that if you have a drug test device that detects a wide variety of drugs (more than four); please understand that some strips might display more than a single drug result. In other words, you might see three or four drugs per strip, depending on the configuration you are using.